If aliens made contact with earth, would that hold horrible consequences for man kind?

Question

Would the interaction happen like War of the Worlds (destructive) or K-pax (pieceful).

I had this debate with my old roommate. We were watching a show where Hawkings said, "If aliens reached our planet, there will be dire cosequences for man kind." We debated. She believed that it would. Assuming evolution does happen not only on earth, the species that are so developed that they can travel through space must be the alpha species. Given evolutionary principles, the alpha species are known to be the most aggressive, dominate, and consumes excessive amounts of resource. (Her reasoning is that they wouldn't be alpha species if they didn't hold these characteristics.)

I had to admit, her theory was quite interesting. I'm kind of interested in hearing your ideas too!

I also think a species can be destructive without intentially being so. Think about animals that enter a new environment. Some have no natural predators, over populate, and consume resources. That is descructive without intending to be!

Answer 1

I've debated this with lots of folks including my brother. From the religious angle he said one time that it doesn't say in the Bible that God passed by these other planets (or will pass by them) on the way to Earth.
Well, if we want to get that litteral it doesn't mention the ISS either. Does that mean that anyone working on the Space Station can't be a Christian?
What about a colony on another planet?

I find it very conceited of us to assume that if God didn't tell us about something that it doesn't exist. He didn't mention dinosaurs but guess what...I LOVE that part of the museum (not to mention Jurassiv Park).

Back to the original question. Hawkings sounds to have seen The Day The Earth Stood Still.
"But should you threaten to extend your violence, this so called Earth of yours will be reduced to a burnt out cinder."
Just because they make contact though wouldn't necessarily mean they want to conquor us. But unfortunately, the logistics don't give to a good outcome.
Considerations:
•Nations : Which nation will they visit first? If they land in all Nations at once then maybe, but if they leave anyone out...I don't even want to think of those consequences.
•Communication : Ok. Say they show up and have plenty of travel tech but not much in communication. Maybe raising their fists and screaming is their "Hi howya doing?" But what do we interprate it as? If the communication part isn't established and explained post haste then I see things going South quickly.
•A Real Threat : They didn't conquor us already because the last time they were here there were giant lizards that ate them despite their lazers. Now these docile much smaller things are here... Hmmm.... If it turns out there is a real threat then whether or not we are devestated depends on their warcraft technology and/or strategic genius. Not that we wouldn't still win out of sheer numbers (depending ont he size of their force) but I can't see any attack of this sort not leaving a mark.
•Government Protocol : If whatever your government is doens't already have a protocol in place then it has to sudeenly implement one. And if the protocol doesn't fit the intention then things could still be bad. Then again, if they surprise us all communications could be open before we know it.

If there were friendly intentions then I see it going better than, say, the 30s or 50s during UFO panic eras.

That's my two Abrahams

Answer 2

only if they were here for our "woman-kind"

Let's just say that there is no way to predict what emissaries of an alien species might do if they landed here. They could be the warlike-smash-and-grab creatures of "Indenpendence Day", the Michael Rennie "UN of Space" alien telling Earthlings to stop their wars "or else", or just a bunch of xenopologists looking at us and shaking their heads. We have done all three here on Earth. What we might hope for, a friendly, advanced civilization that would give us lots of wonderful knowledge and technology then go away, is probably the least likely outcome of a meeting with aliens.

Answer 3

Why does everyone think that Aliens will dominate? To be able to reach to the level of technology that could make light speed possible any species would have to work as a team for a very long time and if a species is able to work as a team or as a colony, the chances are they are civilized.They will not dominate us because they are desperately in need of resources.There are billions of other planets in the universe that has energy to support an entire planet for decades.For example one of Jupiter's moon is filled with ethane and methane, enough resource to last for a long long time and that's only a moon in our solar system, think about the entire galaxy.I think aliens would be as curious about our species as we are about them......I would like to think that they will become our galactic allies....

Answer 4

If aliens made contact with earth, logically there would have to be a reason. Considering that the aliens have made contact, we can justify their intelligence. So, perhaps the aliens are like us and just wanna know that the universe harbors intelligent life, or maybe they've consumed other planets of their resources to obtain the essential energy I think any life would deem important.

I think a lot of movies and the tv we watch has conditioned us to think that aliens will more than likely be hostile, but you have to think about how they would feel, maybe they would think we're hostile as well. Needless to say, it'd be interesting.

Answer 5

It probably would be a disaster. Think of it this way. For the aliens to reach Earth they'd have to be incredibly advanced because as far as we know faster than light travel isn't possible. But for argument say they could get here. Can you name an instance in earth history where a technologically superior group met up with a technologically inferior group and the inferior group survived the ordeal? For example, the Spanish and South American Indians, Europeans and exploration of America etc.

And this doesn't even begin to explore the panic that would be caused by people regardless of the intentions of the aliens.

Answer 6

The one thing that it would do the most harm to is religion. IT has been said that god created earth and it is the only planet that is populated. Therefor this would prove some major religious texts wrong. IF an alien life form reached us you can imagine that they have probably overcome much of our problems.

Answer 7

The theory is interesting. My idea is that we can't expect an alien invasion to be cruel and bad. They maybe friendly. They may only invade here just to see our planet and not to cause a big damage. People always say that aliens invade us because of our scientific power. Always science fictions convey that aliens are bad and cruel. But we can't say that because we still haven't encountered with an invasion.

Answer 8

I starred this one just out of curiosity,, Have to run but will be back later,, interesting question indeed,

Answer 9

"We Come In Peace" and "To Serve Man" come to mind.

Also, I would be leery of any alien that showed up with a Probe-O-Matic 2000™ in his hands, er... tentacles....

Answer 10

No.